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Show By BEN AMES WILLIAMS Copyrioht WNU SERVICE CHAPTER XII Continued 12 Tope handed June the pad on which he had been writing, and Clint stood at her shoulder so that they read it together. Miss Leaford began getting supper before dark. Everyone came to supper except Mrs. Bowdon. They came in relays. About 7:50 Mrs. Taine came to put Mr. and Mrs. Hurder to bed. About eight, Asa Taine came for a cup of tea, used milk out of the bottle. After he left, Mrs. Taine heated heat-ed milk for Mr. and Mrs. Hurder. Hurd-er. Rab Taine came in to say good night. The milk was on the stove. He stood near the stove. Then he left for Providence. About 8:25 Mrs. Taine left, Mr. and Mrs. Hurder in bed. About 8:30 Miss Leaford turned out downstairs lights and went to her room. About 8:45 she met Clint outside. About 11:05 Clint and Miss Leaford returned and stopped in front of the house. About 11:10 they saw the fire. At 11:19 exactly, the alarm was rung in. The apparatus arrived ar-rived at exactly 11:23. Mrs. Taine and Asa arrived at the fire about 11:21. At exactly 11:51 Mrs. Taine put in a call for Providence to her son. While June and Clint studied this schedule in silence, Tope explained: "You know when you went upstairs, up-stairs, and when you went out to meet Clint; and I've guessed at the times before that. I know when the alarm was rung in, and when the apparatus arrived; and by allowing al-lowing for all you and Clint did after you saw the fire and before the apparatus ap-paratus arrived, I can figure out about the time you saw the fire." "Yes," June said. "This seems about right." "I've a record of the call to Providence," Prov-idence," Tope added. "How bad was the fire then when your aunt went to phone?" "The whole house was burning," June decided. Tope nodded. "There's one other question I've got to ask you," he said gravely. "Do you think any one of your relatives might have given your mother poison? Or set the house on fire?" "No, no," June whispered. "They were hard and stubborn; but No. No." "Did any of them except your mother ever take a sleeping-powder?" he insisted. She hesitated. "Why, yes," she said doubtfully. "Uncle Justus did." And she explained in a faint amusement: amuse-ment: "He really had insomnia, sometimes. It seems odd, because he could always sleep in a chair; but sometimes he couldn't sleep in bed. Doctor Cabler gave him some tablets once; but Aunt Evie took them away from him, wouldn't let him use them. So poor Uncle Justus used to ask me to give him a tablet out of Mother's bottle, now and then; and 1 know Rab took some for him once." "When was that?" Tope asked gravely. "About a month ago," June re- fleeted. "I found Rab in the bathroom; bath-room; he told me." Tope wagged his head; but he did not push this matter further. "Did you know Miss Thayer?" he asked. "Her name's Lissa." "Yes," June assented. "That is, I saw her sometimes, when I was walking in the woods." "Did you ever see your cousin Asa with her?" Tope asked. The girl shook her head; and Tope explained: ex-plained: "I saw them kiss each other tonight, to-night, at the fire. They were back in the shadows, but I saw." "Asa?" June cried incredulously. "You never knew anything about that?" "Oh, no," she declared. "But if Asa loved her, he wouldn't have dared tell anyone. They'd have been turious. Aunt Evie, and Grandma Bowdon, I mean." "You think so?" Tope prompted her. "Yes! Mother used to tell me" She hesitated, went bravely on: "Mother used to tell me that if I married without their consent, they would crush me. They did crush her, you know." Inspector Tope nodded; and he picked his words with care. "You remember Mr. Glovere, who lived in the cabin in the woods the man you called Uncle Jim. You liked him. didn't you?" "Yes." she said. "So much. He went away, after Mother died." "He's come back," the Inspector said. "Where is he?" she cried eagerly. eager-ly. Tope hesitated, he confessed at last: "Inspector Heale is holding n'm-" f "Oh," she protested in loyal pride. "Uncle Jim wouldn't. No, no." "He came back at noon today," Tope explained. "Came back ask-' ing for you . . . Miss Leaford, I used to be a policeman. I'm trying to find out what happened out there. You understand that we are sure your mother, somehow, was poisoned. poi-soned. Someone put some extra tablets tab-lets in that glass of milk she drank. It might have been done while the milk was still in the bottle, in Mrs. Bowdon's refrigerator. Or afterward after-ward in your grandmother's kitchen, or on the way upstairs, or after it was taken upstairs. And anyone might have done it Anyone at all." The girl was trembling, but her eyes were steady. And when he did not speak, she cried: "Why should they do a thing like that?" He said slowly: "They might have been afraid afraid of something we don't know about. Or wanting something." some-thing." And he spoke to Miss Moss. "Justus Taine has all the wills, Bowdon's Bow-don's and Hurder's. He wouldn't tell me what's in them. They'll be public pub-lic by and by, but there may not "Clint, whoever did this is a monster, not human." be time." His tone was deeply troubled. trou-bled. He spoke to June. "You and your cousins would inherit all the money, I expect," he said. "All the money in the family." "I don't know," she confessed. "Was there much?" But before he could answer, she cried: "That doesn't matter now, though." Rising Ris-ing anger steadied her. "I want to know who killed my mother," she said. Tope looked at her apprisingly. "Mean that, do you?". "Of course." "Because," he said, "you can help find out! This is ugly business to talk about, hard to believe. But Miss Leaford, your grandpa, Mr. Hurder, is out there, in that house, near dying. It wouldn't take much to make him die. Whoever set fire to ,he house last night wants him dead." And after a moment Tope added soberly: "They refuse to have a nurse for him." He shook his head; he said in a grim and stricken tone: "I think there's an insane murderer mur-derer loose out there insane, and clever as a cat. He's managed to get by so far without leaving a trace. It's the first time in forty years that I've seen a case without one single lead." Clint cried: "What are you getting get-ting at, Inspector?" Tope hesitated for a moment. He ignored Clint, said slowly then: "There's one more thing you ought to know, Miss Leaford: Inspector Heale has arrested this man you call Uncle Jim. Heale thinks he did it" "But why should he?" she protested. protest-ed. "What reason had he?" And Tope said briefly, kindly: "He's your father, June." For a long moment then, silence held them all. June sat still, and the color drained out of her cheeks till she was white as snow. Clint caught her, and she clung to him; yet she did not hide her face from them. She stared at Inspector Tope, and her eyes were streaming, and her lips worked as though she would speak, but no words came. She watched him, and tears streamed down her cheeks, and she began to hiccough with smothered sobs. Tope spoke slowly, in explicit terms. "Your mother ran away with him when she was a girl," he said. "By and by they came home to live; and after two years there, the old folks broke it up. Mrs. Bowdon and Mrs. Taine, he told me, turned your mother against him. He said Mr. and Mrs. Hurder were on his side, but the others broke them down. Finally he left He wanted your mother to go with him, but she wns afraid, so he went away alone." J""b;plained: "He didn't till afterward, years yi you were about V came back and met you to the woods, and you told him who you were. So he stayed, to be near your lived in the cabin there. They wanted to put him off the land; but there wasn't any divorce, di-vorce, and he threatened' to make trouble unless they let him stay. He didn't ask anything of them except ex-cept to be near you, to see you sometimes." He looked at Miss Moss, sure she would understand. "I guess he still loved Kitty Leaford," he said. "When she died, it hit him hard. He went away; but he came back yesterday, says he was asleep in his cabin all last night So Heale has locked him up." "It would seem simple enough to Heale," she pointed out "Heale will say that Mr. Leaford kiDed Mrs. Leaford and then the Hurders, so that June would inherit their money. mon-ey. Then he could claim June as his daughter, and get her and the money too." June moved, about to speak; and Clint held her close, protectingly. She said faintly: "I can remember once, when I was a little girl, Aunt Evie tried to make me stay away from him, and I told him, and he came to the house to see her, and after that she never bothered me . . . "But he didn't do this!" She rubbed her eyes with her hands like one just waking; she stood up, supporting sup-porting herself by Clint's arm. "Oh, I want to do something!" she cried. "What can I do?" The Inspector said soberly: "This, if you want to," he said. "I know it's not safe for you " "Safe!" she exclaimed almost scornfully. "I don't want to be safe, with my mother dead, and my father " "Mr. Hurder's in the Bowdon house," Tope explained. "They aim to keep him there. They won't have a nurse in to take care of him. But Miss Leaford, they'd have you. They want you home, and if you went, and insisted on nursing him " Clint made a swift indignant protest; pro-test; but June hushed him. "Yes, I understand," she told the man steadily. "I'll go. But why? What am I to do?" "To watch," he said. "To be ready." "Ready for what?" she insisted. So, reluctantly, he put the thing in words. "Whoever did this wants Mr. Hurder dead," he pointed out. "I think there'll be another try at killing him." And he said gravely: "There might be more than that There might be a try at killing you." CHAPTER XIII Clint had listened to Inspector Tope's suggestion that June return to Kenesaw Hill with an incredulous and angry horror. Now he cried in a bitter wrath: "No! I won't stand for that. June's-been June's-been through enough " "We'll be there to. take care of her," Tope urged. "You and I, Clint. We'll be on the job. It's only for tonight I've a notion tonight to-night will tell the tale." "No," Clint insisted. "She's through with them out there, all those people. I'm going to be all her family from now on. If you. think I'm going to let her go out there for bait, to bait a trap " And he cried: "Why do you have to mix in. Inspector? Let them wash theii own dirty linen." Tope urged gravely: "It's any citizen's cit-izen's duty to do what he can, Clint." His tone was grim. "And son, there's a murderer loose out there. Maybe a maniac. I think he is. There's a terrible, mad persistence per-sistence in him. Or her." "Her?" Clint echoed, startled by that pronoun. Tope hesitated. "Him or her, whoever who-ever it is," he repeated. "Clint whoever did this is a monster, not human. No telling what will come next" "And you want to risk June's life?" "I don't aim to," Tope argued. "She'll have her eyes open. I'll tell her what to watch for. She'll have a pistol, to use if she has to. We'll be right outside." He spoke to June herselt. "You won't go into it blindly," he said. "Nor at all, unless un-less you want." "Let Heale work it out," Clint cried. "It's his job." June was a long time in taking any part in this discussion between them: But when she spoke at last, it was decisively. "I don't trust Inspector Heale, Clint," she said. "II he thinks Uncle Un-cle Jim my father did this, he must be a dull, witless man." They watched her; she seemed to think aloud. "It was money, the money always," she cried, hall to herself. "I can see that now. Everything Every-thing had to be done to keep the money in the family. That was why they were so furious when Mother married Uncle Jim for fear some of the money would get away from them. Oh, I've heard them talk, and plan!" Clint said warmly: "Sweet, hush! You're never going back there again." But June smiled at him, and she said: "Yes, I am, Clint. I can go back and watch and see things now that I couldn't see before. I can understand." Inspector Tope said slowly: "Heale is afraid of your people. He won't go after them hard, the way he would after other folk. And I never saw an uglier business. This senseless, . pitiless butchering! There's a maniac loose out there; and Heale won't act I've got to find some way." "I'll do whatever you say," June insisted; and Clint knew at last that he could not dissuade the girl. He said slowly: "I wish you wouldn't, June. But I can see, can feel the same way. Inspector, what do you mean to do?" Tope considered, his eyes on the floor, his head wagging. "I think the thing will ripen tonight," he confessed. con-fessed. "If it seems sure that Mr. Hurder will live, the murderer will try to end him tonight." He watched June intently. "And maybe you too! I'm guessing at this; but I'm a good guesser. Some one out there is money-crazy. Mr. Hurder is a rich man; and someone some-one out there wants that money. Maybe wants it quick. Maybe has to have it quick. "I'm guessing," he repeated. "Justus Taine wouldn't tell me what was in the wills. But my guess is that the Hurder money is in a trust agreement for Mts. Leaford but she's dead and then for you. Miss Leaford. With trustees. Maybe Taine himself. Maybe his sons. It doesn't matter wouldn't help us any if we knew, because they're all in the same pot together. But it comes down to it that you're the only one left in the way, Miss Leaford. Lea-ford. With you dead, the Hurder money's bound to stay in the Taine family." June nodded. "Yes," she said. "Yes, they could make Grandpa Hurder write his will the way they wanted it. They'd leave him do peace till he did." "So there it is," Tope agree'-l, with a grim simplicity. "The moll- ey waiting, ready to run into their pockets as soon as Mr. Hurder dies. You're the last dam in the way, the last thing that holds it back. Thefll be after you." "I'm not afraid!" said June (TO BE CONTINUED) |